I've worked 37 years for a major police dept. Retired. Co-spent 20 years with USN RM2 and the USAR, retired SFC. Finished my working career as a merchant seaman in the Persian Gulf carrying beans, bullets, and bandaids for Op Iraqi Freedom. On the beach now, due to heart attack. I'm closer to 70 than I am to 60. I've been around the block once or twice.
I stay away from ALL religious fanatics whether in DuBai or New York and keep my own console...and
pray for the strictest Constitutional separation of church and state.
...all I ask is to be accepted for who I am, not my politics or religion. I've served my country and community and I'm dead tired of folks telling me how to live my life, who have not.
Each of us is the HERO of our own story. Keep it at that and we'll all get along. I've earned the right to my opinion(s) as well at the next swingin' Richard.
Quote:
The part I don't get about the religious argument in favor of suppressing other people's sin is, where the hell does it come from? I don't remember Jesus telling some woman at some well, "Go and make sure nobody else sins anymore!" I don't remember Moses bringing down any commandments that started out "They shall not . . " I don't remember any of the beatitudes starting out, "Cursed are the . . ."
It seems that for some people, believing that they are among God's chosen means that they get to behave as if they are God. You get to punish anyone whom you think has displeased God, and you get to require everyone to obey your version of God's morality. This really is a species of idolatry, in that one has substituted one's own image of God for God him (or her) self.
Ask yourself this: if God is really all-powerful, why the hell does he need anyone to enforce his rules?
:unknown source
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